


Red

by Lidsworth



Series: Tobirama Week [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 00:04:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3360308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lidsworth/pseuds/Lidsworth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War has a nasty way of clinging to Tobirama.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh, I'm 40 minutes late. Anyway, this is for Tobirama week day 2: War

He feels the urge to tear a young Kagami Uchiha apart, as the child sits underneath his desk, skipping out of the ninja academy as usual, and reading the final installment of his favorite trilogy. Tobirama can feel the small child rub against his legs underneath the desk, can feel the air that brushes past his feet as the child turns the book.

 

There's a red glow beneath the desk, and against the crimson gaze, the darkness underneath does nothing to dissuade the child's hungry eyes. He copies the adventures straight from the pages, absorbs the tales of knights in shinning armor and wailing princesses into his brain, and continues to do so with every single “flip”.

 

Never has Tobirama met an Uchiha who uses his Sharingan for anything other than fighting. Though by no means is Kagami Uchiha unequipped to fight, fighting just isn't on the young boy's mind (despite his impressive skills), and neither is using his Sharingan for combat purposes.

 

He goes as far as skipping class just so he can fall behind, as he has no intention of graduating early, nor does he ever miss a chance to read a good book. No one will look for him underneath Nindame's desk.

 

So he sits underneath, flipping through the pages, Sharingan copying all.

 

Tobirama often asks himself how it got to this point, how every morning became a struggle to either kill or not to kill, to discern Kagami's Sharingan from the many he'd seen on the battle field, barring towards him with tongues of fire and hearts of stone.

 

He wonders why he even let this wayward Uchiha child stumble into his office, why he allowed him to hide away from the world and bury himself in his books

 

Perhaps he sought to save the little Kagami, save him from the curse that his bloodline promised him, save him from the hate that would eventually take full control of him, but the more Tobirama thinks about it, the more he realizes that the is saving Kagami from him.

 

Is he even saving him? Or keeping an eye on him, waiting for the Curse of Hatred kill his senses, so then he can strike him down young, before he has the chance to age and become a full fledged Shinobi?

 

“Kagami, I think you should get back to class,” dull red eyes meet spinning scarlet ones, and Tobirama nearly gasps at the sight of the three dark dots in the boy's eyes.

 

When did he have a chance to mature his Sharingan?

 

Part of him swears that he's no longer in his desk chair, that the little boy below him is no longer a boy, rather a young Izuna Uchiha , glaring at him with eyes darker than blood, snarling at him like an animal, bearing into him with a wall of fire.

 

“But I-”

“ _GO_ ,” Tobirama doesn't give the boy a chance to plead, not like some pathetic warrior on a battlefield. He doesn't trust himself around Izu-Kagami any longer, those eyes are too keen, their image long engraved in the embers of Tobirama's mind, as if he himself has his own Sharingan.

 

Kagami leaves quickly, and after that, Tobirama never sees him in his office again, not until he's receiving his first mission.

 

Oooo

Past

 

“Why are you red?” Hashirama walks over to his younger brother, placing a finger on his pink skin.

 

“Sunburn,” the younger Senju replies rather quickly in an attempt to avoid whatever pointless dribble comes out of his brother's mouth next. Though suddenly, he realizes his mistake.

 

It's mid fall, and though the Senju clan scouts the border of the fire country that season, the sun refuses to shine through it's thick blanket of clouds.

 

Tobirama's new found redness has nothing to do with the sun.

 

“The sun hasn't been out in weeks, Tobirama,” Hashirama takes a seat beside him, on the tree branch that they've been designated to sit on, spying on an enemy camp, “And your skin isn't sunburned...”  
  


And it's not, though the irritation is there nonetheless.

 

Tobirama tries his best to brush off the topic, “Pay attention to the camp, brother. We have little time to discuss personal matter-”  
  
“When it's regarding my brother, I can discuss it whenever I want,” Hashirama is serious as he speaks, directing his attention way from the camp, and onto his younger brother, “Why are you red?”  
  
Hashirama would never have asked if he didn't have an inkling as to why Tobirama had turned colors.

 

The younger Senju tries to look away, but his chin is caught in his brother's hand.

 

“Brother, let go of me! We don't look anything alike, if we're seen, people will start to get the wrong idea-”  
“Let them, then, but I won't let you go until you answer me,” Hashirama destroys his brother's final resolve, bearing his brown eyes into Tobirama's red ones.

 

Tobirama sighed, he knows he can't get out of this.

 

“I'm just cleaning myself,” he breathes softly, allowing himself this one moment of vulnerability, “but the blood doesn't seem to go away.”

 

Hashirama releases him then, and smiles, trying to reassure his brother the best way he can, “It's all in your head, Tobi! There's no blood or anything.”

 

He wants to scream at Hashirama, wants to tell him that he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. Only, he does.

 

But they each cope differently, and Tobirama would rather not pretend he's not suffering, less he end up as insane and delusional as his older brother.

 

Ooo

Childhood

 

He learns to fear the color red before he does the Sharingan, learns to associate it with the color of blind rage, with the sensation of warm blood pouring down limbs and thighs, rolling from mouths like red beads, rolling down chins. Learns to associate it with tendons snapping apart like bones, learns to associate it with bruises on the body, with torture of the worst kind, the kind that he tries to recover from at an extremely tender age.

 

He can't walk properly for a week, and he refuses to look at himself in the mirror, not because of his injuries (he hardly has any on his face or any other visible part of his body, save for a few hickeys plastered on his tiny neck), but because of his eyes, his dark red eyes.

 

They took him with the intention to break him, not kill him. But the first night after his rescue sees him squirming in his bed, crying in his sheets, and biting back agonizing wails as his nether regions feels as if they are on fire. He feels as if he is dying, and it takes the strong arms of his older brother to calm him down, and whisk him into some sort of sleep.

 

This goes on for the first week.

 

Then at week's end, he wakes to his father calling him a weakling. To Hashirama being hauled out of the bed, to Tobirama being forced to his shaky feet despite the pain that radiates from his thighs, despite the fact that he was brutally tortured just days ago.

 

He wakes to a trail of blood (and he thinks that he's bled out his emotions), to a kunai being forced into his tiny wrist, and to his father dragging him to the field, and telling him to “man up”.

 

Hashirama is put in a coma that day after a disagreement between he and his father, Tobirama is forced to fight days after being brutally raped, and he learns that day to replace fear with hate, to replace red with the Sharingan, and to strike down any enemy bearing those devilish eyes.

 

He is weak for being captured by the Uchiha, he is weak for allowing them to have their way with him, he is weak for showing emotions, and above all else, he is weak for being a child.

 

ooo

Present

 

He finds this irrational hate plaguing him, as a young Kagami Uchiha prepares for his first mission. Part of Tobirama wishes that the child was once again below his desk, reading, rather than risking his neck for Konoha.

 

Part of him wants to apologize for his harsh dismissal all those years ago—but God, did it spare the boy's life.

 

Part of Tobirama wants to form a bond with Kagami, form one just as he has with Saru, or Danzo, or any of the other children he's come into contact with. But Tobirama has learned to fear red before the Sharingan, has learned to hate the Sharingan more than he has red, and has learned that the vices of war never leave their victims.

 

He's learned to place to sins of an entire clan on the shoulder of an innocent bookworm. He's learned to destroy the innocence in another, just as his father did to him all those years ago.

 

Though his father took away his emotions, Tobirama took away Kagami's books. Both were tangible innocence, and bother were lost in the midst of war.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it, God bless.


End file.
